Monthly Archives: September 2010

Non-fiction 2 (YTD 54) Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia, by Brendan Simms The Great Transformation, by Karen Armstrong Non-genre fiction 3 (YTD 39) Silas Marner, by George Eliot Set in Darkness, by Ian Rankin The Shell Seekers, … Continue reading →

This is the first Doctor Who graphic novel to be officially produced by the BBC, using the talents of Justin Richards who is currently the most prolific of Who authors, and Mike Collins who is the main artist of the … Continue reading →

broadcast anniversaries 30 September 1967: broadcast of first episode of The Abominable Snowmen. The Tardis lands in Tibet; the Doctor is captured by the monks of Det-Sen monastery at the urging of Travers who thinks he is a rival researcher. … Continue reading →

I spotted what seemed to me a vaguely familiar name in the news in the last couple of days, and emailed a friend who was in the next generation of student hacks after me to ask him if he remembered … Continue reading →

Since Jennie, alas, seems not to have got sufficient nominations for the post of President of the Liberal Democrats, I can declare that I’m pretty sure I’ll be voting for Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale. I knew Tim … Continue reading →

broadcast anniversaries 29 September 1979: broadcast of first episode of City of Death. The Doctor and Romana are in Paris, and get mixed up with Duggan the detective and Count and Countess Scarlioni. But the Count is more than he … Continue reading →

Mark Steel: That's right, it was all a Muslim plot – Mark Steel – Independent.co.uk Except it wasn't. There was no planned Islamist assassination attempt against the Pope. (tags: islam waronterror pope) UN plan for 'alien ambassador' a case of … Continue reading →

This is a rather brave attempt to wring significance out of the fact that Confucius, the Buddha, Socrates and Jeremiah all lived at about the same time, between them causing a revolution in the way in which humans relate to … Continue reading →

Looking through my backlist, this tends to be mainstream fiction books which I bought because I knew a lot of other people had read them, but did not expect to finish with more than just being able to tick the … Continue reading →

I first encountered the Mars books when I moved to Bosnia in early 1997, and for me they are forever associated with my own discovery of a completely different country and lifestyle, where I too was at long distance from … Continue reading →

I don’t know how many of you, like me, were greeted when logging into LJ today with an irritating banner across the bottom of the browser window calling itself “LJTimes” and flashing much useful information, all in Russian. If you … Continue reading →

i) births and deaths 28 September 1919: birth of Terence Dudley who directed Meglos (1980) and wrote Four to Doomsday (1982), Black Orchid (1982) and The King’s Demons (1983). 28 September 1937: birth of Donald Gee, who played Major Ian … Continue reading →

UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens | News.com.au Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa). (tags: space)

i) births and deaths 27 September 1921: birth of Milton Subotsky, who produced and wrote Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966), the two cinema films starring Peter Cushing as Doctor Who. 27 … Continue reading →

Dailymotion – Lapsus: Dati confond "inflation" et… "fellation" – une vidéo Actu et Politique French politician Rachida Dati's unfortunate slip of the tongue (tags: french) Cheese or Font Hilarious. Is Castellano a type of cheese or a font? What about … Continue reading →

The Sack of Rome.

I had thought I would try and get into the habit of posting about each new Doctor Who audio play as I finished them, but the hectic events of the last couple of weeks meant that this was one intention … Continue reading →

I am saving some of these for later days, so here I just want to briefly salute the hilariously disastrous dinner party which takes place half way through Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign. Really, explaining it takes too long; … Continue reading →

Like a lot of other people, I was saddened and disgusted by Elizabeth Moon’s recent comments on Islam. (For those who don’t know about this: Moon, a fairly prominent writer of what is generally termed ‘military sf’, who also won … Continue reading →

births and deaths 26 September 1909: birth of Leonard Sachs, who played Admiral de Coligny in The Massacre (1966) and President Borusa in Arc of Infinity (1983)

Wishful thinking in medical education: My experience using social bookmarking with medical students: #fail? (tags: internet) Lib Dem conference: 10 things I've learned (tags: libdems)

This is a slightly difficult question to answer. Looking through my LibraryThing catalogue (yet again) I find I have given five stars to the following books originally published in languages other than English: Albanian: The File on H Anglo-Saxon: Beowulf … Continue reading →

Went to see B this morning, who was very chirpy and apparently has been notably so since her exciting stay in hospital. We had a fun walk round the pools at Hélécine, and got back in time for her rather … Continue reading →

broadcast anniversaries 25 September 1965: broadcast of “Air Lock”, third episode of the story we now call Galaxy 4. Vicki is captured by the Rills, but persuades the Doctor to help them; Steven is threatened with asphyxiation by the Drahvins. … Continue reading →

Can this be right? « Slugger O'Toole Fianna Fail 22%, Fine Gael 30%, Labour 35%!!!! Greens 2%, Sinn Fein 4%, Independents 8%; looks like we may see a Labour Taoiseach… (tags: ireland) Birth Pains as Southern Sudan Preps for Nationhood … Continue reading →

I’ve given a partial answer to this with the earlier question about books I hate

Planet of the Daleks is one of the rare cases where my opinion of the story has dropped largely as a result of watching it in sequence. Picked randomly out of a set of Old Who stories, it seems inoffensive … Continue reading →

I know that there are five candidates running for the position of Leader of the UK’s Labour Party, whose result is to be announced tomorrow. But is there also an election for the position of Deputy Leader, which was narrowly … Continue reading →

Usual procedure for book memes: bold if I’ve read it, italics if I’ve started but haven’t finished it, struck through if I couldn’t stand it. Discussion welcome here but probably better directed to Ian Sales’ post here (revised from his … Continue reading →